For anyone using Thunderbird with Ubuntu as I do, I have a question I
hope you can help me with.

I recently had to confirm to AOL's new standards on a couple of my email
accounts. I was having difficulty making the settings changes in
Thunderbird (wouldn't save the settings changes even if closed and
reopened), so deleted two accounts and started over in Thunderbird.
When I deleted, I made sure to select "remove account information" and
NOT "remove message data." Upon recreating these two accounts, they
are now working, but the emails are no longer in the inbox. I need
them. They should still be present somewhere and how do I get them to
show again in the inbox?

Thanks in advance.

On 1/19/22 8:23 AM, Juan S wrote:
> For anyone using Thunderbird with Ubuntu as I do, I have a question I
> hope you can help me with.
>
> I recently had to confirm to AOL's new standards on a couple of my email
> accounts. I was having difficulty making the settings changes in
> Thunderbird (wouldn't save the settings changes even if closed and
> reopened), so deleted two accounts and started over in Thunderbird. When
> I deleted, I made sure to select "remove account information" and NOT
> "remove message data."   Upon recreating these two accounts, they are
> now working, but the emails are no longer in the inbox.  I need them.
> They should still be present somewhere and how do I get them to show
> again in the inbox?
>
> Thanks in advance.

I don't see anything I sent in the outbox either for these two accounts.

Juan S wrote:
> On 1/19/22 8:23 AM, Juan S wrote:
>> For anyone using Thunderbird with Ubuntu as I do, I have a question I
>> hope you can help me with.
>>
>> I recently had to confirm to AOL's new standards on a couple of my
>> email accounts. I was having difficulty making the settings changes in
>> Thunderbird (wouldn't save the settings changes even if closed and
>> reopened), so deleted two accounts and started over in Thunderbird.
>> When I deleted, I made sure to select "remove account information" and
>> NOT "remove message data."   Upon recreating these two accounts, they
>> are now working, but the emails are no longer in the inbox.  I need
>> them. They should still be present somewhere and how do I get them to
>> show again in the inbox?
>>
>> Thanks in advance.
>
> I don't see anything I sent in the outbox either for these two accounts.
>
You may want to ask AOL users in
alt.comp.software.thunderbird
newsgroup.

Juan S wrote:
> For anyone using Thunderbird with Ubuntu as I do, I have a question I
> hope you can help me with.
>
> I recently had to confirm to AOL's new standards on a couple of my email
> accounts. I was having difficulty making the settings changes in
> Thunderbird (wouldn't save the settings changes even if closed and
> reopened), so deleted two accounts and started over in Thunderbird. When
> I deleted, I made sure to select "remove account information" and NOT
> "remove message data."   Upon recreating these two accounts, they are
> now working, but the emails are no longer in the inbox.  I need them. 
> They should still be present somewhere and how do I get them to show
> again in the inbox?
>
> Thanks in advance.

Well first was this POP or IMAP? Secondly, I would have created a new
profile rather than delete account within a profile, because creating a
new profile would have just created a new directory in

~/.thunderbird/

leaving the existing data alone.

POP mail gets stored under:

~/.thunderbird/[RANDOM].default/Mail/[ACCOUNT]/

IMAP cached data* under:

~/.thunderbird/[RANDOM].default/ImapMail/[ACCOUNT]/

*if IMAP the mail folder should be preserved on the server and should
repopulate the local cache if still present on the server. If POP
account you MUST have the local data because once received the email is
removed from the server [unless custom setting]

You can look in ~/.thunderbird/profiles.ini to identify your profile
directory.

Also do you have backups?

[Backups: the thing everyone learns is important AFTER something goes bad]

What I normally do when recovering/transferring old account mail for
people is while thunderbird IS NOT running, locate the current profile
directory and under

~/.thunderbird/[RANDOM].default/Mail/'Local Folders'

copy data from restoring account mailbox data, which will be files name
'Inbox' , 'Sent', whatever and put a copy under above as renamed as
'Fix_Inbox', 'Fix_Sent', etc. Then when you start thunderbird under
'Local Folders' you will find new mail folders 'Fix_Inbox', 'Fix_Sent',
etc. You can then drag and drop whatever messages you want to recover
and place then in the appropriate account and mailbox you want.

Caveats:
mail folders with subfolders will be in subdirectories named WHATEVER.sbd

thunderbird stores mail in mbox format by default which is just one big
text file so if the folders have not been compressed the messages that
where moved or deleted will still be there. They just have a flag set to
mark the state of the message. I have created perl scripts to either
mark all messages to unread, or separate mail box file into individual
..eml files, so if you have the mail folders backup up there is always
ways to recover "lost" messages.

--
Take care,

Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com

On Wed, 19 Jan 2022 08:23:58 -0500, Juan S wrote:

> For anyone using Thunderbird with Ubuntu as I do, I have a question I
> hope you can help me with.
>
> I recently had to confirm to AOL's new standards on a couple of my email
> accounts. I was having difficulty making the settings changes in
> Thunderbird (wouldn't save the settings changes even if closed and
> reopened), so deleted two accounts and started over in Thunderbird.
> When I deleted, I made sure to select "remove account information" and
> NOT "remove message data." Upon recreating these two accounts, they
> are now working, but the emails are no longer in the inbox. I need
> them. They should still be present somewhere and how do I get them to
> show again in the inbox?
>
> Thanks in advance.

The emails are present in different sub-folders of your profile folder.

Whether you can move the files from one sub-folder to another, depends
on whether the old and new accounts are POP accounts or IMAP accounts.
The answer is YES if both the old and new accounts are POP, and NO if
one or both is/are IMAP.

For the new accounts, you can find the sub-folders by going to
"Edit >> Account Settings >> (*select account*) >> Server Settings"
and looking at the path in the 'Local Directory' box.

For the old deleted accounts, ideally one should do this before
deleting the account. If the account is now deleted, try this
to find the sub-folder.
* To open the profile folder, go to
"Help >> Troubleshooting Information" and click the button
"Open Directory" which is to the right of "Profile Directory".
* The account's sub-folder is a sub-sub-folder of either
the "Mail" sub-folder (for POP accounts) or the "ImapMail"
sub-folder (for IMAP accounts). You will need to figure
out which sub-sub-folders are the ones for the old deleted
accounts.

What to do next depends on whether the old (deleted) and new
(re-created) accounts were/are POP or IMAP.

If the old account was POP and the new account is IMAP, then to get
the emails into the new account you have to do it this way:
* In Thunderbird, create a sub-folder "Old Account" inside "Local Folders".
* Close Thunderbird.
* From your file manager, copy the files from the old account's
sub-sub-folder into the "Old Account" sub-folder which will be
inside "Local Folders" inside "Mail".
* Open Thunderbird.
* From within Thunderbird, go to the "Old Account" sub-folder
and move the emails into the IMAP account.

--
Kind regards
Ralph

On 1/19/22 10:11 AM, Jonathan N. Little wrote:
>
-----------------cut------------------------

Ok, well, with little loss, I was able to find a recent back up, but
herein lies the problem I'm having, which has been going on for a while
and I have yet to solve. I have three accounts and two are working
fine, but one is not. It is showing the following behavior:

If I highlight this problem account and then choose "edit SMTP server",
under the security and authentication section, "user name" keeps
changing back to one of the other accounts. If I change it to what it
should be, everything works fine... I can send and receive emails to
myself. If I close Thunderbird and reopen, the user name has changed
back to one of the other accounts again. At no where else does this
show up. Under "server settings" it is showing the correct server and
user names and the same if I go to the "outgoing server (SMTP)"
settings.

I scratch my head with this, so would appreciate any help here. I don't
want to try just deleting the account again and starting over as that is
where I had problems not being able to locate existing important emails
earlier. Thanks in advance.

On 1/19/22 12:41 PM, Ralph Fox wrote:
>
-----------------cut------------------------------

Thanks, but fortunately I was able to retrieve much of the existing
emails from a recent back up. However, there is a problem I'm still
having and maybe you can help.

I have three accounts and two are working fine, but one is not. It is
showing the following behavior:

If I highlight this problem account and then choose "edit SMTP server",
under the security and authentication section, "user name" keeps
changing back to one of the other accounts. If I change it to what it
should be, everything works fine... I can send and receive emails to
myself. If I close Thunderbird and reopen, the user name has changed
back to one of the other accounts again. At no where else does this
show up. Under "server settings" it is showing the correct server and
user names and the same if I go to the "outgoing server (SMTP)"
settings.

I scratch my head with this, so would appreciate any help here. I don't
want to try just deleting the account again and starting over as that is
where I had problems not being able to locate existing important emails
earlier. Thanks in advance.

Juan S wrote:
> If I highlight this problem account and then choose "edit SMTP server",
> under the security and authentication section, "user name" keeps
> changing back to one of the other accounts.  If I change it to what it
> should be, everything works fine... I can send and receive emails to
> myself.  If I close Thunderbird and reopen, the user name has changed
> back to one of the other accounts again.  At no where else does this
> show up.  Under "server settings" it is showing the correct server and
> user names and the same if I go to the "outgoing server (SMTP)" settings.

That setting is saved in the prefs.js in the profile folder. I'd check
to see the is a write issue with that file.

Whenever you create a new account in thunderbird is creates a linked
outgoing SMTP server, even if the same SMTP is used for outgoing mail
for more than account. What I would do is in the account settings window
is navigate to the bottom of the left panel to Outgoing Server (SMTP).
Then create a new enter with what settings you need. In description give
it a easy identifiable name like "Fix this f'ng server" then go to the
problematic account and from Outgoing Server (SMTP) dropdown then select
that newly created SMTP server and test. Close TB and see if the setting
sticks.

--
Take care,

Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com

On 19/01/2022 22:45, Juan S wrote:
> On 1/19/22 12:41 PM, Ralph Fox wrote:
>>
> -----------------cut------------------------------
>
> Thanks, but fortunately I was able to retrieve much of the existing emails from a recent back up.  However, there is a
> problem I'm still having and maybe you can help.
>
> I have three accounts and two are working fine, but one is not.  It is showing the following behavior:
>
> If I highlight this problem account and then choose "edit SMTP server", under the security and authentication section,
> "user name" keeps changing back to one of the other accounts.  If I change it to what it should be, everything works
> fine... I can send and receive emails to myself.  If I close Thunderbird and reopen, the user name has changed back to
> one of the other accounts again.  At no where else does this show up.  Under "server settings" it is showing the correct
> server and user names and the same if I go to the "outgoing server (SMTP)" settings.
>
> I scratch my head with this, so would appreciate any help here.  I don't want to try just deleting the account again and
> starting over as that is where I had problems not being able to locate existing important emails earlier.  Thanks in
> advance.

Try running "thunderbird -ProfileManager" to delete the account, and mark the checkbox that chooses "Don't delete files"
You can then ceate a new user, pointing at those files
..
This *might* help

--
Mike R.
Home: http://alpha.mike-r.com/
QOTD: http://alpha.mike-r.com/qotd.php
No Micro$oft products were used in the URLs above, or in preparing this message.
Recommended reading: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#before
and: http://alpha.mike-r.com/jargon/T/top-post.html
Missile address: N31.7624/E34.9691

On 1/19/22 4:16 PM, Jonathan N. Little wrote:
> Juan S wrote:
>> If I highlight this problem account and then choose "edit SMTP server",
>> under the security and authentication section, "user name" keeps
>> changing back to one of the other accounts.  If I change it to what it
>> should be, everything works fine... I can send and receive emails to
>> myself.  If I close Thunderbird and reopen, the user name has changed
>> back to one of the other accounts again.  At no where else does this
>> show up.  Under "server settings" it is showing the correct server and
>> user names and the same if I go to the "outgoing server (SMTP)" settings.
>
> That setting is saved in the prefs.js in the profile folder. I'd check
> to see the is a write issue with that file.
>
> Whenever you create a new account in thunderbird is creates a linked
> outgoing SMTP server, even if the same SMTP is used for outgoing mail
> for more than account. What I would do is in the account settings window
> is navigate to the bottom of the left panel to Outgoing Server (SMTP).
> Then create a new enter with what settings you need. In description give
> it a easy identifiable name like "Fix this f'ng server" then go to the
> problematic account and from Outgoing Server (SMTP) dropdown then select
> that newly created SMTP server and test. Close TB and see if the setting
> sticks.
>

You essentially said here what someone else also said in the Thunderbird
group (which I didn't know I had until refreshing my ng list) and it
solved the problem! I didn't know I could manually select which SMTP
outgoing for each account. Created a new one and problem solved! This
has been going on for 6 months or so and nice to have that account
working again. Not my business account thank goodness or I would have
had to solve it asap.

AOL had sent out a "warning" email back in like November for any third
party users to be sure and set up their apps (or software in my case)
correctly or their email would no longer work after a certain date. I
felt I had done this a year before, so was only mildly concerned and
ignored it, that is until my business email started acting flaky the
other day, prompting me to revisit settings. Sure enough, I hadn't made
the correct settings to the account. I was surprised it was still
working because the cut off was like a couple of months ago. Just to be
sure, I went back through all accounts and changed them, as needed, to
be sure they conformed. I don't think any of them did honestly. Some
were still using Verizon SMTP so, again, surprised they still worked at
all. Oh well, all done, and all backed up immediately. I wouldn't want
to have to go through all of these settings again a year down the road
when I've forgotten how to do them all. Thanks again for your help and
suggestions.

On 1/20/22 6:36 AM, Henry Crun wrote:
> On 19/01/2022 22:45, Juan S wrote:
>> On 1/19/22 12:41 PM, Ralph Fox wrote:
>>>
>> -----------------cut------------------------------
>>
>> Thanks, but fortunately I was able to retrieve much of the existing
>> emails from a recent back up.  However, there is a problem I'm still
>> having and maybe you can help.
>>
>> I have three accounts and two are working fine, but one is not.  It is
>> showing the following behavior:
>>
>> If I highlight this problem account and then choose "edit SMTP
>> server", under the security and authentication section, "user name"
>> keeps changing back to one of the other accounts.  If I change it to
>> what it should be, everything works fine... I can send and receive
>> emails to myself.  If I close Thunderbird and reopen, the user name
>> has changed back to one of the other accounts again.  At no where else
>> does this show up.  Under "server settings" it is showing the correct
>> server and user names and the same if I go to the "outgoing server
>> (SMTP)" settings.
>>
>> I scratch my head with this, so would appreciate any help here.  I
>> don't want to try just deleting the account again and starting over as
>> that is where I had problems not being able to locate existing
>> important emails earlier.  Thanks in advance.
>
> Try running "thunderbird -ProfileManager" to delete the account, and
> mark the checkbox that chooses "Don't delete files"
> You can then ceate a new user, pointing at those files
> .
> This *might* help
>

The solution was found and is in my response above. I initially tried
what you suggest here, but I wasn't able to determine which folders
belonged to which account after I deleted the account, and suddenly all
fo the emails were gone when I created a new account with the same info.
Since I kept the info (not deleting the folders), I decided to
reinstall my system from a recent back up where everything was working.
After making the correct settings and testing this time around, I
simply replaced the "mail" folder that had already existed from before
the back up. All solved and everything works now, no missing email. I
really like having Clonezilla as a back up tool. It has rescued me from
a lot of jams over the years. To make things easy, I simply clone from
hard drive to hard drive. Then, even if I can't restore the existing
hard drive from the clone, I can just plug in the clone and go from
there.